Ireland one of four applicants to host rugby World Cup in 2023

Ireland, France, Italy and South Africa have entered the race to host the rugby union World Cup in 2023.

Rugby World announced the four candidates on Friday, with a final decision to be made in November 2017.

France and South Africa have each hosted the tournament once before, in 2007 and 1995 respectively.

Ireland staged five games during the 1991 event - four at Lansdowne Road, Dublin and one at Ravenhill in Belfast - while Italy have never hosted a World Cup fixture.

The sport's governing body will now assess if the four bids meet the criteria laid out by World Rugby and any country which fails this first checkpoint will learn their fate on November 1.

The four unions involved submitted their bid applications ahead of Thursday's deadline.

A statement from World Rugby reads: "The process to identify the host of one of the world's biggest sporting events kicked off last year and now moves to a key information-gathering stage on the road to confirmation of the host union by the World Rugby Council in November 2017."

World Rugby chairman Bill Beaumont said in a statement: "We are delighted by the strong level of serious interest from unions and governments.

"This truly underscores the enormous hosting appeal of Rugby World Cup as a low-investment, low-risk, high-return economic, social and sporting driver."

The next World Cup in 2019 is being held in Japan.